In this post I am beginning to introduce
you to the idea of Super-Relaxation and how such Super-Relaxation allows to Unlock
the Healthy Developmental Potential of a child affected by cerebral palsy even
in the most severe cases.

We are going to do this introduction in a
step-by-step manner – starting with a deeper look into the essence of
'ordinary' Relaxation and understanding how the
Relaxation is different from Anti-Tension. This will enable us to move
further towards what Super-Relaxation is, and to see clearly why it is such a
powerful approach. As the next step we'll look at the difference between two avenues of making the most of your
child's developmental potential – the
'Unlocking' strategy and the 'Boosting'
strategy. And finally we'll put the pieces together – showing how all these
elements can quite easily and smoothly
fit into the daily life of your child and your own.

Relaxation: One Word – Multiple
Meanings.

In general 'Relaxation' is a very familiar
word – we all know it and use it quite often. In fact, in our stressed modern
lives we do not have much of the opportunities to 'relax' ourselves and we look
forwards to the weekends and vacation times hoping that we'd finally be able to
"switch off", "calm down", "enjoy" etc.
(Unfortunately, all too often the reality is very different and we keep
ourselves busy, stressed and connected to the mobile phones even when we hoped
for some 'time off' – but that's a different story altogether…)

Even more obvious and frequently used
reference to the 'relaxation' is psychological
– when we look for the ways of saving ourselves from the pressures of
everyday's chores and obligations, trying
to find a mental and emotional
escape from a frantic pace of a modern life.

And then, of course, there is a combination
of physical and psychological relaxations that we are all craving for–"Having
some rest"; "Relaxing after a hard day's work…"– where we just
want to lie down or to sit very comfortably, to do nothing; to stop moving; to switch the busy mind off
by getting distracted …

Both the physical and the psychological
perspectives on relaxation share an important thing in common – we perceive
such 'relaxations' as the 'nice to haves' – something which is obviously good
and pleasant but not fundamentally important. In our daily lives we are much more
often keep doing things that we
consider important until we drop into bed exhausted, rather than deliberately
focusing on the value of relaxation time.

I've made this relatively long introduction into the 'relaxation'
subject in order to make sure that we review this intuitive perception on 'relaxation' before making a subtle but
important shift towards the less obvious aspect – the Physiological Relaxation.

The 'physiology' studies the internal
processes taking place within our bodies – so Physiological Relaxation is the inquiry into what's happening
inside our body when we are relaxed and what effects it has on our health.

In fact, even in our daily language this
'physiological relaxation' receives a special mention –when we talk about our
need to relax in order to re-charge;
re-energize and re-fresh ourselves…

This is the avenue that we are going to pay
our special attention to in this inquiry and this avenue eventually is going to lead us to the Super-Relaxation and to the practical
ways of helping your child to thrive, flourish and progress despite the
constraints and challenges of a brain injury.

The Power of Physiological Relaxation.

Now once we are very clear that we are
focused on the internal physiological aspect of the Relaxation– we can move
deeper into the full understanding of the special benefits that it brings.

First of all, Physiological Relaxation is a
physiological state –in other
words it is a very specific INTERNAL ACTIVITY.

The focus on Physiological Relaxation being
an 'activity' is extremely important because intuitively we associate
relaxation – both physical and psychological – with our conscious INACTIVITY..

In our usual everyday life we relax
when we stop doing things, when we
'switch off', when our bodies and our minds are INACTIVE. There is even a song
: "Relax, don't do it…"

This external aspect – what I call
"our own "lazy" perspective on relaxation" as on "not
doing anything" – is the one that
hides from us the truth about the state
of physiological relaxation – being the state of the highest internal physiological activity.

In other words, Physiological Relaxation is the state when internally our bodies work
their most intense.

This work is done "silently" –
entirely at the level of our involuntary
and unconscious body – so we are not really aware of it and do not fully
appreciate how important and INTENSE this internal relaxation work is.

You might be asking – what is the body then
doing when we are in this physiological relaxation state? – Well, Relaxation is the physiological state when
our bodies do the most important health building and maintenance work –
re-pair, re-build, re-model, re-connect, re-generate and so on…

On the one hand, everyone knows that –
"Children grow in their sleep… You are taller in the morning than in the
evening" etc – What is 'the sleep'? – it is the physiological state when
all of the external doings of our movements and thinking are switched off , but
yet at the same time the body is busy with the most intense health-building and
re-building activities internally and unconsciously. So at the back of our
minds we know how powerful is physiological relaxation but at the same time, we
take it for granted and don't appreciate its powers..

Actually, all of the most important 'works' of keeping us healthy are done inside
our bodies exactly during the state of relaxation.

Physiological state
of Relaxation – beyond the sleep & rest.

Sleep is the best example of 'Physiology of
Relaxation at work' but it is only the beginning of our journey into the powers
of physiological relaxation.

Why do I need to highlight this? – Because
too often after revisiting the health benefits of sleep many parents tend to
rush towards the simplistic conclusion: "I've got it. My child needs to
sleep more and to rest more often as well, right?"…

On the one hand, that's true – indeed
having enough sleep and rest is extremely important for every child and for a
child affected by cerebral palsy, who is weaker than the neurotypical children,
it is absolutely essential. However, we shouldn't limit ourselves to this
intuitive conclusion – our goal is to use the powers of the Physiological
Relaxation to its maximum.

The main understanding that we should
develop out of our inquiry into the physiology of relaxation is a lot more
powerful:

The Physiology of Relaxation is the state where
the energy resources of the human body (metabolic,
electrical, mechanical etc.) are invested into the internal processes of growth; tissue
differentiation; regeneration; repairs; recharge etc. – in other
words into the increase of Internal Health
Assets.

3
avenues of energy expenditure in the human body.

This Health investment of human body's
energy resourcesvia Relaxation is
either direct or indirect;

Direct Health Investment – the energy resources of the body are spent on the growth; tissue
differentiation; regeneration; repairs

Indirect Health Investment – the
reduction of the external consumption and lesser tensional wastage of the energy resources of the body.

To understand these ideas better we need to
return to an even larger matter – the human body's supply of energy resources
and the avenues of their expenditure. Obviously, nothing comes out of nowhere.
The energy conservation law is the foundation of thermodynamics. Any process
within the human body has a some energy costs that channel along 3 main avenues of energy expenditure
–Investment, Consumption and Wastage. Let's look at those a bit closer:

What
is an External Energy Consumption? – these are various external
bodily activities that cost energy – locomotion; fine motor skills;
intellectual activity etc. The energy supply in our body is limited – so
everything that we spend externally via our "doings" and 'activity'
has a cost. The more we spend externally, the less remains for the internal
investment. When this imbalance becomes excessive – our internal body shuts our
activities off; we feel tired and sleepy and unable to do things anymore. If we
force ourselves anyway – we pay the price. Our health assets reduce and all
sorts of 'bad' things start happening to us – from sicknesses to injuries and
serious illnesses.

Does that mean that we shouldn’t be doing
anything and just spend our days idly? – Of course not, but the
understanding of this relationship
between external consumption and internal health investment is very important –
because it makes us aware of watching for the right balance.

This is especially true for the kids
affected by Cerebral Palsy, where we
face the Quadruple Challenge of External Energy Consumption:

The overall energy resources available for consumption are much
lower (weaker metabolism; less efficient
mechanotransduction etc.);

The external agents (parents and teachers) tend to try to 'push the
limits' by trying to constantly entertain and
engage the child above his or her natural rhythm of activity & rest

The internal health maintenance needs are much higher.

What
is an Energy Wastage? – these are unproductive
and unintentional Internal &External Tensions
that either cost direct energy expense or interfere with the efficiency of
energy transport.

The difference between an External
Energy Consumption and an Energy Wastage is rather obvious.

Useful and intentional activities such as
purposeful movements, locomotion, play, intellectual engagement etc. are the
ones that cost energy but has some benefits – physical, physiological and
emotional. This is an External Energy
Consumption.

An
Energy Wastage is caused by restrictions, transport resistances and
Tensions. These are pure costs that drain the limited energy resources of the
body but do not bring any tangible benefits in return.

It is helpful to summarize all these ideas
in a compact form:

Total Energy Supply of the living
body has exactly3 avenues of expenditure:

Energy Consumptionvia
External Activities – the energy is spent externally but in exchange to
some well defined physical and emotional benefits. This is the conscious level
that we are aware of.

Energy Wastagevia Internal
& External Tensions – the energy is wasted

We can write this down as a neat equation:

E (Total) = E
(Invested) + E (Consumed) + E (Wasted)

E
(T)= E(I)+ E (C)+ E (W)

This simple equation is going to help us
immensely allowing to gain the powerful insights into the developmental
progress of both healthy children and children affected by cerebral palsy.

The first major insight is obvious right
away – the essence of any child's development is in the growth and tissue
differentiation. A newborn baby is small in size and has primitive
non-differentiated tissues – growth, tissue differentiation, health and
developmental progress are all linked together. Functions & motion require
healthy structure; or to be even more precise – a child needs to be able to
afford the E consumption necessary for external functions by building his or
her health assets first.

What is a necessary condition for all these
good things to take place? –

The
E (Invested)has to exceed E(Consumed) + E(Wasted).

If this is not the case a child is due to
struggle and perish.

On the other hand, what do we all know
about thriving and flourishing child? – During the period of proportionally the
fastest child's growth (the 1st year of life)– the Relaxation time is at its
maximum (the baby sleeps and stays "idle" for most of the day); the
Activity that causes E consumption is at its minimum; and the Tensional Wastage
is at its lowest (just recall how soft and supple are the babies).

Healthy
Relaxation Autopilot vs. Broken Relaxation Autopilot

Physiological Relaxation is an intense Internal
ACTIVITY! The main difference between ourselves
– healthy people – and a child affected by cerebral palsy that we have a Healthy Relaxation Autopilot that combines three powerful benefits:

First, once we stop doing
things externally our bodies then automatically turn on the high intensity of
the internal self-healing and self-recovery processes. In other words, once we
stop the External Energy Consumption – our body switches on into the Internal
Energy Investment.

Second, our unproductive
tensions are relatively low even when we are in the External Energy Consumption
phase –doing things and moving. It is a well-known fact, that during a regular
movement a healthy muscle switches the activity between its fibers in such a
way that any given element only works 3-5% fascia the time. So a healthy muscle
rests and has this background relaxation turned on 95-97% of the time even when its engaged in
external action.

Third, once we stop moving and
become idle – our unproductive tensions (especially in children) almost
disappear. As a result all of the body's
energy resources immediately become available for physiological
relaxation and internal investment.

Compare this to the predicament of a child
affected by cerebral palsy. Unfortunately, the Healthy Relaxation Autopilot
does not work for brain-injured children – especially the severely
affected quadriplegic ones. It makes sense to look at this Broken Relaxation
Autopilot in a reverse order to appreciate the extent of challenges:

Third, even when a child stops
moving and tries to be idle the unproductive background tensions remain high –
not only in the most obvious areas such as the legs and arms but throughout the
entire body. That's why the Energy Wastage never stops automatically.

Second, a child affected by
cerebral palsy recruits more muscle fibers with individual muscles and more
muscles as well when making the same movement or function as a healthy child.
That's why the Energy Consumption even

Besides the third and the
second challenges individually there is a vicious combination of those: The
positions & postures that for a healthy are truly idle and cost-free –
lying down, sitting, reclining etc. – require active work for a child affected
by cerebral palsy especially to a quadriplegic one. Hence we face a double
trouble – what should be the positions and times of external rest and internal
physiological relaxation investment – actually become the periods of External
Energy Consumption.

First, the continuous
over-engagement of the surface musculature; the inability to stop working in
the "idle" positions; and the presence of the permanent background
tensions – make it difficult to do the full switch from the External
Consumption & activity to the Internal Investment & physiological
relaxation.

Think of this challenge
this way. All of us can recall the times when after prolonged period of stress
or especially hard work we find ourselves in a very disturbing situation – we
are tired and even exhausted; we sense that we need to switch to the
physiological relaxation modality – but we can't; we remain stuck in the
external mode because of the background muscle tension and elevated tone that
doesn't go away. How disturbing and detrimental is that? – For a child affected
by cerebral palsy – that's an everyday reality…

Paradoxically when we healthy people look at CP kids from the
outside – we think that they are not
doing enough and want to "help" them into doing more… but the
reality is exactly the opposite – they are already working too hard and doing too much, consuming too much energy
resources. Their bodies are already in the overload. What they need from us
is not our "help" and intervention for doing more – but our
facilitation in doing less!

Cerebral palsy kids have massive Healthy
Relaxationanddevelopmentalpotential but their Relaxation Autopilot is not working.They can't stop doing too much externally, so their bodies do not
have enough opportunities to do the
healthy work internally. They need our assistance and intelligent help in
turning off the unproductive tensions and the excessive postural activity in
order to free themselves from the Energy Wastage and excessive External Energy
Consumption.

TO BE CONTINUED....

P.S. I want to thank all the parents who responded to my questions about the interest to have more advanced training and on having a "spare learning capacity"... I am going to reply to everyone shortly. Meanwhile -- in case some families missed the previous post -- I am re-posting those questions

Question
1.

Over the recent years I have accumulated a
lot of videos teaching the techniques and going into the specific details and
nuances of positioning, setups, technical refinements etc.

We've been using those for the internal
training of ABR team but the constraints of the ABR training sessions that we
have today only allow to share a fraction of those with you during the
trainings at the ABR Centers and Satellites.

However, at the same time – I often here
the remarks both from many parents and from the Trainers giving feedback after
the sessions – that "parents are 'at full learning capacity' with the
technical training that we already give"
assuming that any further dive into the details is going to be an overload and
overwhelm.

I believe that this is true for some
parents but I hope that some of you do have some ''spare learning capacity'.

Such trainings will need to undergo some
editing and setting up a membership site for accessing these video – so it is
quite a lot of extra work & expense on our part. So I'd want to hear what's
the level of interest towards it among the active ABR families.

Question
2.

Whilst my own style of training is very
technical and detail oriented – after working closely with Alex for the last
year – I can see that his training brings an entirely different perspective and
dimension that I find very valuable:

His largest focus is on your 'inner game' – on your ABR Mindset and on the
Philosophy of expressing your relationship and deep personal connection with
your child via your exercise. One of his favorite sayings is: "You have to
make your ABR ball ALIVE… With every 'roll' you want to bring some extra life
into your child's body through this ball – can you achieve that if your ball is
dead in your hands?"..

Again, I am unlikely to come up with this
perspective myself because my entire language and the worldview is shaped
differently but I am fully behind it and
I think that there is a tremendous value to it for those who are ready to hear
the deeper meaning…

So my question is quite straightforward –
if I see enough enthusiasm from you – we'll then try to make these trainings
available during the coming year, either via the membership site or some other
video sharing form.

I am
asking these questions for a very simple reason – we have plenty more to
give but I want to see the volunteers who'd deliberately step up and say:
"Yes, I am ready to do this extra learning work."

These levels of trainings is not something
that I am going to simply dump on YouTube or Vimeo for the curiosity of the
passing strangers..

You are welcome to leave you responses in
the comments here but otherwise please write to me
<stresstransfer2012@gmail.com>

Comments

The Power of Super-Relaxation ['Relaxogenesis'] to Unlock the Healthy Developmental Potential of your Brain Injured Child. PART 1

In this post I am beginning to introduce
you to the idea of Super-Relaxation and how such Super-Relaxation allows to Unlock
the Healthy Developmental Potential of a child affected by cerebral palsy even
in the most severe cases.

We are going to do this introduction in a
step-by-step manner – starting with a deeper look into the essence of
'ordinary' Relaxation and understanding how the
Relaxation is different from Anti-Tension. This will enable us to move
further towards what Super-Relaxation is, and to see clearly why it is such a
powerful approach. As the next step we'll look at the difference between two avenues of making the most of your
child's developmental potential – the
'Unlocking' strategy and the 'Boosting'
strategy. And finally we'll put the pieces together – showing how all these
elements can quite easily and smoothly
fit into the daily life of your child and your own.